Finley Yardley
Identified as “Findley” on Baseball Reference, Finley A. Yardley was born in Ben Arnold, Texas on March 21, 1895.
“Fin” Yardley was a good hitter, but his intelligence was questioned more than once during his career.
After a spring trial with the St. Louis Browns in 1917, he was released to the Little Rock Travelers in the Southern Association for 57 games, but according to The Arkansas Gazette, “Forgetting is what chased him out” and he was sent to the Spokane Indians in the Northwestern League.
Yardley hit well in Spokane (.339 in 115 at bats), but despite his success The Gazette noted that:
“His think tank still slips now and then. Recently he hit a drive good for three bases but forgot to touch first.”
Fin Yardley was no rocket scientist—his son John Finley Yardley was.
John Yardley was an aeronautical engineer whose team from McDonnell Aircraft Corporation designed the Friendship 7 capsule in which John Glenn orbited the Earth in 1962—Glenn called him “one of the real pioneers of the space program.” Yardley was also involved with the Gemini, Skylab and Space Shuttle Programs.
After his playing career, Finley Yardley settled in St. Louis where he worked as a sales manager at a car dealership. He died in Tucson, Arizona on March 1, 1963.
Charles Gurtz
Charles Joseph Gurtz was born in DePauw, Indiana in 1890. He served in the United States Army, where he was a member of the 22nd Infantry and played for the unit’s baseball team in the El Paso, Texas city league. He then played in a number of leagues throughout the Southwest not recognized by the National Agreement, including stops with teams in the “copper circuit;” loosely connected teams and leagues in mining towns in New Mexico and Arizona
Gurtz was let out of his contract in Silver City, New Mexico in order to join the Bloomington Bloomers in the Three-I League in 1914. He hit .333, finishing second to Howard Wakefield for the league batting title.
Shortly after the 1914 season ended, Gurtz broke his leg during a semi-pro game in Odell, Illinois and returned home to Indiana.
In February of 1915, The Associated Press reported that he was “suffering from mental trouble, due to excessive religious zeal (and) has been declared insane. “ He was committed to Indiana’s state hospital at Madison, where “Physician’s say that he should respond to treatment and become normal again if his mind can be kept off religion.”
A month later Gurtz was released from the state hospital, The Associated Press said the hospital’s “superintendent expressed the opinion that Gurtz would be able to play ball.”
Gurtz played, but not well.
He hit just .193 for Bloomington in 1915. The following year he was released by Bloomington just before the season began, but was signed by the Oklahoma City Senators in the Western Association in May. He split the 1916 season between the Senators and the Muskogee Mets in the same league, hitting just .210. (Baseball Reference identifies the player with Oklahoma City and Muskogee in 1916 as “William Gurtz,” but contemporary references in The Oklahoma City Times confirm that it was Charles Gurtz)
Gurtz returned to his native Indiana after the 1916 season and died on November 9, 1989, three weeks short of his 100th birthday.
Jimmy Duchalsky
James Louis “Jimmy” “the Duke” Duchalsky was discovered in Hawaii between the 1922 and ’23 seasons when Herb Hunter’s touring big leaguers visited the island during their barnstorming trip which also included stops in Japan, Korea, China and the Philippines.
The International News Service, which called the 5’ 9” 150 lb. Duchalsky the “hardest hitting pitcher in Hawaiian baseball circles,” said he caught the eye of New York Yankee pitcher “Bullet” Joe Bush. Bush “was so impressed with the youngster’s work in a game he pitched against the big leaguers that he recommended him highly to Duffy Lewis manager of the Salt Lake City Bees in the Pacific Coast League).”
Joe Bush, front, second from right photographed during the tour.
Bush said the only thing he lacked was “a change of pace and that can be developed under the instruction of a good coach and manager.”
Duchalsky was 24-years-old (the Bees claimed he was just 21), but not as polished as Bush thought and struggled through 15 appearances, most in relief, for Salt Lake. He posted a 1-3 record and 7.59 ERA in 51 innings—he did have 8 hits in 20 at bats, with one home run. In May, he and teammate Tony Lazzeri were sent to the Peoria Tractors in the Three-I League; Duchalsky was 13-8 in 28 appearances.
The following season Duchalsky rejoined the Bees but pitched just one-third of an inning, allowing two runs and two hits in an 18-17 loss to the Oakland Oaks on April 10. He was released later that week and returned to the Three-I League, this time as a member of the Decatur Commodores; he was 11-9 with a 4.13 ERA for the last-place (58-78) Commodores.
Jimmy Duchalsky 1923
At the end of October he returned to Honolulu to play winter ball.
On December 7, 1924 Duchalsky was involved in an altercation with a cab driver. The Decatur Review said:
“Jim Duchalsky, known to all Three Eye League baseball fans as “The Duke,” has pitched his last game of ball… (he was) shot to death in his native city last evening after a street argument…It will be hard to convince Decatur baseball fans who have come in contact with Jim that he was the aggressor in any brawl that might have taken place for he was the most quiet player both on and off the field to ever appear here… Despite his quiet manners and the fact that he was not a mixer, many fans in both Decatur and Peoria will mourn his loss. Duchalsky was admired by fans in every city where he played for his sportsmanlike conduct on the ball field and in all his games pitched at Staley Field was never seen disputing an umpire’s decision, even on balls and strikes. He pitched his game and left the arguments out of his assortment.”
The Associated Press said, “The encounter was believed to have started in jealousy over a woman.” The cab driver, John Emmeluth, claimed self-defense, but several witnesses said he approached and shot the pitcher with no warning. He was sentenced to 20 to 25 years in prison. Duchalsky was buried in Honolulu.
Baseball History Daily 